Remember David: thoughts on Luke Kemp’s ‘Goliath’s Curse’

Another book review while it’s fresh in my mind, this time Luke Kemp’s Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse (Penguin, 2025). As is my wont, I’m going to spend more time talking about what I disagree with in the book than what I agree with, because I find it more generative. But let me begin with a quick summary of its merits, which are considerable. First of all, it’s just really great to see a young scholar with highfaluting academic credibility taking the idea of emerging societal collapse seriously. Despite the ever-growing drumbeat of warning signals, it remains all too rare. Ridicule awaits those who say we have little option but to step into the maelstrom of growing collapse. With books like this, perhaps the tide is starting to turn. Other good aspects of the book: Kemp has a lucid and easily intelligible framework for understanding collapses past and present, but one that allows him to survey the evidence with historical depth and subtlety. And, a sight…